Hello, I have a 30 gallon tank that has been up and running for about a year. I have had the same fish since the beginning and haven't had added any new ones.

I have 4 silver tipped tetras, 5 neon tetras and 6 zebra danios and 2 snails. The temp is around 73. I do not have live plants.

In my quest to save time getting ready for the holiday company, my husband helped me clean the tank a week ago as I was doing other things. He was vacuuming the gravel and changing the water. Apparently he also changed my filter media(I have 2). He was just trying to be helpful but he took about 50% of the water out and vacuumed a lot of the 'dirty' gravel as he called it. He totally screwed my bacteria, this I know.

I had cloudiness in the water 2 days later and my ammonia is off the charts. My fish look very stressed. I have been doing water changes every day and have used ammonia lock. Now I am wondering if I should have just let it re-cycle on it's and if I am going in circles with the water changes.

I am trying to save my fish and so far so good but what direction should I go in? Should I keep doing partial water changes? Should I leave it alone? Any suggestions/help would be greatly appreciated.

You can not just leave it alone. The ammoia/nitrite will kill most of your fish, if not all. You have to do water changes and get something to add back the bacteria, either buy one of the comercial product or have a filter running at another establish tank for few days and bring the media over.

In the mean time, keep up with the water chagnes since that's the only way you can take out the nasty things before your bacteria can do the work for you._________________125 g discus tank 13 discus, 5 Sterbai cory, 3 clown loaches, 1 Albino BN pH 6.3 50% WC x2/wk
2 g nano tank 3 Danio, pH 7.6 80% WC/ 2 days

You could also try Bio Spira. I have never tried it, but I've heard its the one product that can acually establish your bacteria. On the other hand it might just be a waist of money. Regardless what you do just keep up the water changes and monitor your ammonia and nitrite levels.

Buy a bottle of Seachem's Prime. It's a water conditioner that also detoxifies ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates. In emergency situations like this the bottle says you can dose up to five times the regular amount. This will help take some of the stress off the fish while you are working on the daily water changes._________________What color is your straitjacket?

I've used Bio Spira on 2 occasions to establish my tanks and have had beautiful results. I've never used, nor heard it used for an emergency situation like this though. It can be rather expencive running about $25 for the dosing for a 90G tank...